"It ain't a tent," said he, chuckling. "It's one of the best huts I've seen on the diggings."
"It is, is it?"
"Once I'd found Rotten Gully, which isn't so very far from this, it was easy enough to find the only claim it could be."
"So it's as good as all that!"
"To look at," said Jewson, "on a moonlight night. But they'd their own light burning inside; you hadn't to get very near to hear their voices. They were sitting up yarning, same as you and the lieutenant. Only on tea," added the steward, in the absence of further encouragement.
"Poor devils!" remarked Devenish, raising his pannikin.
"You can't call 'em poor now, sir," declared the steward. "All's fair in love and war, and I had a look in on 'em like a mouse: they've proper crockery left 'em by the outgoing tenant, and a proper table to set it on."
"Anything else?" inquired Ralph, sarcastically.
Jewson leaned forward and lowered his voice as though they were being spied upon in their turn.
"Half a saucerful of gold-dust out of the hole!"